


Heat Source

by Penguin



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-20
Updated: 2010-03-20
Packaged: 2017-10-08 04:16:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/72597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penguin/pseuds/Penguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack fuckin' Twist, fucking Jack Twist, that's what his life's been about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heat Source

Ennis Del Mar throws the door open and the heels of his worn boots make a hollow, thundering noise on the steps. As far as there's ever a smile on his lips, there is one now.

"Jack fuckin' Twist," he says, pretending he hasn't rehearsed the line for four years.

The answering grin on Jack's face sparks a hot glow in him, a small basecamp fire of piled-up longing and desire. Then the hard familiar arms are around him, warm calloused hands on his face and a mouth hard against his, teeth colliding, backs scraping against the wood wall, first Jack's and then his own. The roughness makes it real, finally real. Within seconds, the memory of Alma's softness is melting away into the nothingness of the past and forgotten. This is here and now and that's all there's room for.

* * *

Ennis has lived all his life in the cold. Bleak light on dusty roads, pale windswept fields, dark mountains and heavy snows. When he thinks back it all seems like an endless succession of wintry days, dotted here and there by small, occasional sources of heat. The warmth of a horse through his jeans, a flickering log fire, a rare sunny afternoon.

And Jack Twist.

 

* * *

They come back to him when he least expects it. Suddenly they're there filling his mind with a clarity like a punch on the jaw, making him gasp with the pain of loss. Dangerous bloody things, memories. They make him drop his axe chopping wood, the sharp edge nearly going through the toe of his boot; they make him damn near go off the road in the car, barely avoiding ending up like his parents. Stupid things they are too, sometimes. Things he didn't know were still there in his mind, clumsily stashed away like a child's treasure, popping up like a Jack-Twist-in-the-box.

The look in Jack's blue eyes as they open and gaze into his own. Fingertips running down his side and over his hip as he's nearly asleep. A shared laugh as whisky burns their throats. The night sky over their heads as they huddle together, drunkenly trying to count the stars. Jack's gloved hands holding the reins of that ugly bay mare. And sometimes, at night, the intense memories of skin and lips and a pleasure like nothing else he's ever felt.

And then he scrambles out of bed to throw the closet door open, to stare at the blue mountains on the postcard nailed to the inside of it, watching them blur as his eyes sting, as he touches the shirts on the coathanger with a ridiculous sob stuck at the back of his throat.

This is all that's left after twenty long years. Two bloodstained shirts, a postcard and those dangerous memories.

Jack fuckin' Twist.

* * *

Those days, those moments, shining in his memory and carrying him through everyday life. Through everything else.

Jack's elbows on either side of his hips, mouth wet and tight on his cock, his own hands clutching at tufts of grass as he comes.

His front pressed against Jack's sweaty back, pushing inside him, gripping his hips hard.

His mouth moving lazily over goosefleshed skin stretched taut over Jack's ribs; the smell of dried sweat and dirty jeans and of wood sage they've crushed under them without noticing. The soothing sound of water nearby; sunlight gently touching their bodies.

Washing in the icy stream next morning, skin numbed, scalp contracting as he pours water over his head, giving him a headache. A naked, stomping dance on the shingle by the stream stops his teeth chattering, and Jack's laugh up on the grassy slope makes him all warm again.

Jack fuckin' Twist, fucking Jack Twist, that's what his life's been about.

* * *

Alma Jr has just left, and she's about the only source of warmth there is these days. The smile in her brown eyes. Enough to melt snow.

Ennis stands for a while outside his trailer, reluctant to go back in, rubbing his hands over his arms and watching as the pale evening light dies over the stubbled fields. Cold colours, cold country, a cold life - and at the end of it, a cold grave.

There's nothing left but the relentless wind that sweeps away everything, everything, except the salty sting in his eyes and some grit in his palm. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, the promise of blissful oblivion.

Water-walking Jesus, take me away.

He goes back inside, opens the closet door to straighten the postcard that's hanging askew, and leaves it open as he throws himself on the bed, still with his boots on.


End file.
